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January 14, 2009 at 07:00 PM
NU Online News Service
American International Group Inc. has shed some light on how a failed AIG derivatives unit and a rescue entity will handle differences between the value of collateral and the value of canceled derivatives transactions.
AIG, New York, has filed a copy of a shortfall agreement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The agreement was entered into Nov. 25, 2008, and amended Dec. 18, 2008, according to the copy posted on the SEC Web site.
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York worked with AIG to set up Maiden Lane III.
The entity is using a combination of Fed money and AIG money to acquire “multi-sector collateralized debt obligations” linked to credit default swaps written by AIG’s shuttered AIG Financial Products Corp. derivatives unit.
Once the entity acquires the CDOs, credit default swaps and similar instruments that insure the CDOs are canceled, in an effort to avert the possibility that the failure of a CDO could trigger a self-sustaining cycle of credit default swap failures at many different financial institutions.
On Oct. 31, 2008, AIG Financial Products was party to derivative transactions with a total notional value of about $54 billion, according to the text of the shortfall agreement.
